If the French learn that you’re going to Camargue, one of the first places they advise you to visit is the Chez Bob restaurant.

Camargue is famous for bulls, white horses, red rice, and flamingo. They devour all these, with an obvious exception for horses and flamingo. Especially the black bulls. This main local attraction is located literally in the middle of nowhere: in the suburbs of Arles, right on the road between all the villages, under a self-made sigh hidden in bushes.

A rough-looking man called Bob, whose figure is severely damaged by meat and wine, and two women who look like his family, manage the place. No one is really happy about your arrival. The restaurateur and his women have no time for fucking around – they constantly receive buses full of people. At times you can even run into live music performed by some crappy local guitarists. Things get even worse if you come while some loathsome British retirees are around, then it’s totally screwed. Still the restaurant’s worth attention.

Outside right at the entrance the fire’s burning and there’s a grid. On top of the grid there’s some meat. They don’t marinate meat, neither do they twist it, nor sprinkle it with anything. They just take it out, put it there and forget about it, then they return to take it and bring it in. That’s all. The quantity of pieces on the grid tells you how many people are inside at the moment.

When you come in into the Bob’s tavern, Bob’s women are there to meet you. It takes them damn way too much time to finally grasp the names on the reservation, then it takes time to find the reservation book and after that your names in this book. In another 5 minutes, you’re at last seated at a table.

On your table there will be a basket of fresh vegetables, a plate of local rural cold meats of all sorts, a jar of mustard and some bread. At first all this, especially the meat plate makes you wanna run away. The table setting reminds me of some restaurants in Kolomna set to receive foreign tourists. And here comes the fat Bob and asks what we’re going to have. The menu doesn’t exist. Announcing this very fact, he makes his proposal – duck leg confit, duck breast with fruit vinegar, mutton (just like this, no specification on the part of the ram), entrecôte and “a bull for two people”. After comes the woman with a question: “White or red?” No wine list, no names, simply red or white.

That’s it. The doneness levels and side dishes are left to the discretion of the owner. I really think that if someone asked there about the doneness, fat Bob and his women would just fucking throw the asshole out. Or have they been frying meat for the last 35 years in vain? Don’t they know the best way to cook all these pieces of meat? I remember a story about the ex-wife of my friend Sasha Lagutin whose name was Sveta. We all went to a new restaurant Da Giacomo. Ironically, this place’s taken by one of my restaurants now. So, back then it was a fashionable restaurant and each of us started to show off while ordering. A typical situation for Moscow and as well for the crazy infernal America, in other countries the custom is to believe the chef and respect his taste. So everyone began: “please, make this with this, and that without that,” but Sveta was the one who outdid us all. She ordered pasta in cream tomato sauce and asked them – ATTENTION! – to put there less tomatoes and less cream. I was in fucking shock for a long time after. So meanwhile they were cooking my “bull for two people”, I was entertaining myself by visualizing in my mind what would happen to a Muscovite if he asked here for medium rare and less tomatoes in tomato sauce.

Ugly Bob and his women know their business. They bring food fast. They’ve never heard of meat aging. They cut and sell. No aging. Bull’s meat is rich in taste and easy to chew despite the 100% free range grazing on grass. Only blue rare. The amount of blood on the plate makes you think they’ve killed someone. Meat’s cooked on fire, not even on coals. You get it with strong smell of fire and smoke as if it was shish kebab – it turns out to be a sort of a mix of shish kebab and steak. Duck breast’s very regular, but the fruit vinegar sauce’s very good. It’s some sweet vinegar, which tastes of berries. And again the duck, it’s regular for France, here in Russia you won’t find such a duck.

Overall, Bob deserves a visit but only for lunch. I can’t imagine a dinner there.